Sony's PlayStation 4 costs $1,829 in Brazil

So, if you're living in Brazil and you're looking to purchase the PlayStation 4, expect to spend a lot more than the rest of the world. In that region, the PS4 costs R$3,999, or about $1,829 at the current exchange rate. Doing the math in reverse finds the PlayStation 4's $399.99 MSRP converting over to R$872.33. So what's the problem? According to Sony, it's taxes.

"We want to emphasize that it isn't in the interest of Sony Computer Entertainment America to sell PS4 units at this high retail price, as it's not good for our gamers and it's not good for the PlayStation brand," said SCEA in a statement.

"There is a lot of confusion and inaccurate information spreading online about Brazil's import tax policies online and the PlayStation 4 retail price, so we'd like to set the record straight: of the R$3,999 gamers pay, 63% of the retail price goes to offset the various taxes that are applied in the process of importation. We will continue to talk with the relevant government agencies to help us reduce the heavy tax burden that gamers, retailers and Sony Computer Entertainment America are paying."

"Sony Computer Entertainment began locally manufacturing PlayStation 3 in Manaus this past May and it immediately made PS3 more affordable to gamers in Brazil. PlayStation is fully committed to Brazilian gamers and we are proud of the strong relationship we've been able to build over the years. We are doing everything possible at this moment to reduce the PS4 price for you."

In a handy chart cooked up by NeoGAF, you can see that Sony's statement is proven mostly true. For some reason, Sony's PS4 and PS Vita still have some extra price bloat compared to other imported consoles, but the PS3 and Xbox 360, which are manufactured locally in Brazil have a smaller after-conversion mark up than other gaming hardware sold in the region. The Xbox One is also imported, but the system's price is still R$1,800 ($823) less than the PS4. Brazilian news site UOL has reported that Microsoft is working to have the Xbox One manufactured in the region, which would drive the price down even further. Until Sony's next-gen console gets made in Brazil, the system could find itself losing significant ground to the competition.

So would you pay the premium to get your PlayStation 4 locally in Brazil?

I'm curious how hard would it be for a Brazilian to import a PS4 on their own? Or would that not work for some reason? Seems like there must be as I don't understand why anyone would pay that much if there was a simple way around paying such an outrageous price.Edited October 2013 by Unknown

Actually, byaafachead, most people in Brazil simply won't buy the console at that price. Of course, there's a few people who simply don't mind paying an absurd amount for anything, since most of them only do that to show up (something we tend to relate do a better social status around here).

About importing the PS4, it's kind of easy, actually, since Amazon is delivering the product here. The problem is, even by that mean, we still have to pay around US$ 900 for the videogame because of the taxes involved. Way less than Sony is officialy changing, but still a lot.

And you have to take in considerating that it's our culture not to pay the full price at once, but to divide the cost of products in multiple parts. And that's something you can't do if you buy in a foreign site. Taking that in account, it's just a small portion of brazilians that can actually resot to importing the console (something that requires an international credic card, a thing most people here don't have the means to acquire).

Anyway, i hope this clarifies how things tend to work around here (sorry about the poor enlgish, it's been a while since i had to write anything in this language and i'm kind of rusty).

As a brazillian, my first reaction was to calculate the exepenses involved into buying a plane ticket to the US and adding the price of the PS4. The results? About R$3,100 (about $1400) -

But, as I've said before here, I think, we suffer from a LOT of extra taxes and bloated expenses, allied to a perceived corruption rate and mishandling of taxpayer money.

So, a few years back, the only actual way to play videogames was importing systems or buying from importers that evaded the taxes, for an actual justifiable price. The official price of a brazilian manufactured PS3 is R$1.099,00, as you guys pointed out, but I managed to buy mine for less than R$800,00 back in '09.

To make things even worse, buying games is very expensive. A traditional, $60 priced game usually comes around R$200 to R$250. The only way I could actually afford games was to migrate to Steam, where the regional prices and taxes aren't applied, so a game can be fair priced (a launch game doesn't go over R$89).

In the end, the prices illustrate that, even though we've come a long way into becoming a recognizable market, we still have a lot of ways to go. It should be a sign that we are paying way too much in everything here, from videogames to appliances to cars, and receiving way too little back from the government and companies.

I understand what you are saying, man. I live in Mexico and while we certainly don’t have it as bad, we also suffer overpricing in many imported goods due to taxes and other expenses, while also suffering problems of mishandling of tax money and high corruption rates within the government and authorities.

To a degree, we are privileged compared to other LATAM countries due to our proximity to the US and the Free Trade Agreement (for comparison, with the current exchange rate, the price of the PS4 in Mexico is going to be around $577.00USD, still overpriced but not remotely close to the outrageous levels of the Brazilian price), but the situation is still far from healthy.

There is also the fact that we have to pay a lot in terms of taxes, without receiving back enough from the government given the general poor quality of most of our public services, the high unemployment rate, the low wages and the overall crappy state of our economy.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring problem in all of Latin America, which is why piracy and the grey market have become so prevalent in the entire region.

Isn't this part of why the Master System was popular in Brazil for so long? I understand Sega licensed out the system for local production, so it had a major price advantage.

Anyhow, this reminds me of a customer that used to come in to the game store I worked at in the mid-2000s. He split his time between the US and Brazil, and when he was in the States he'd pick up game systems to flip in Brazil.